New Orleans Shaolin

It’s that time again… World Tai Chi Day! It’s when we go out in public to demonstrate and promote tai chi as a wellness and energy practice. This year we’ll be doing a short donation-based class OPEN TO ALL and then some of us will do some demonstrations including sword, staff, iron fan, and a section of the Yang 64 posture form. If you’re at all interested in tai chi this would be the time to join us!

Year of the Horse kickoff class is in the books! Horse punches require a lot of wrist strength so we worked those and mule kicks on the bag. Then we learned the Horse section from 8 Animal pakua. Looking forward to another year of traditional Shaolin arts with this group!

Welcome to the Year of the Fire Horse!

I hope your Mardi Gras went well and you celebrated in whichever way you like best. It’s fun that, this time, the Lunar New Year is also aligning with the post Mardi Gras “New Orleans New Year.” In New Orleans, it’s a time to draw your energy back in from all the outward focusing of the Carnival season. It’s a time to look inside and see what are your intentions, needs, and hopes.

This inward or yin orientation will begin the process of replenishing us energetically. While this healing process is taking place, we can also be planting the very yang seed of the Fire Horse; not necessarily acting on it, but setting our intention of how we’ll charge forward with passion, and even some abandon, when the time is right.

To celebrate the Year of the Horse we’ll try to embody the horse energy by learning two short forms this Saturday, Jan 21st.

10am - Beginner Kung Fu - Horse Pakua Road from the 8 Animal Pakua form

11am - Tai Chi - Horse Hsing-Ie from the Hsing-Ie 12 Animals form

Both forms feature the Horse style punch which is interesting because it uses bent wrists (see photo). Also at some point we will most definitely be saying “neighhhhhh.” We’ll learn the forms and do some applications for how to use these movements from the horse. Register for class in the bio.

Final testing in the Year of the Snake! This final shedding energy seems especially apropos for the white belts: shedding the person who “couldn’t” do martial arts, or “couldn’t” make a big change in their lives. There’s always time to become someone new if you just commit yourself to it. And then it won’t be long before you’re one of the brown belts testing in front of, and inspiring, the white belts… And the process continues.

Congratulations at all! Now it’s time for the charging energy of the Horse. Let’s go!

We’ve been breathing all month building toward the Lunar New Year, which happens to be the same day as Mardi Gras! This period between holidays is good time to go inside and focus on the 2 main states of breathing: expansion and release.

We started there and then each week we’ve been progressing the practice by extending the time and focusing on the other 2 states of the breath: holding with air in, and pausing while the air is out.

These breathing practices are the core of our internal arts training and it’s always good to go back to them, especially in this transitional time before the year really gets going.

As always, thanks to Grandmaster Sin and all the other teachers for passing this practice on to us. 🤜🫷

🐎 Year of the Horse shirt preorder is open! We’ve got 2 different horse designs this year. Shirt is by and the hoody design is Use the link in the bio to preorder yours at 20% off regular price (or just dm me to use Venmo)

🎉The tai chi test performances today were inspirational! This material is subtle so it’s hard to integrate it into the body. These people put in the time and work to make it happen so their gongfu is clear to see. I’m so happy for them!